Mafengwo, a major SNS travel website in China, denied the accusation of "copying data from its competitors' database" on Monday, saying it is an organized attack.
"It's a distorted accusation, and has been verified as an organized attack. We will take legal measures to protect our rights and interests," said the company in a statement on its Sina Weibo account.
In a We-media article published on Wechat on Saturday, the writer named Ziquan and a data analysis team named Hurui data, said that Mafengwo has used numerous fake users comments, which are copied from the competitors of the website and to lure clients.
"As a travel website depends on users' comments, 18 million comments out of a total 21 million are fake ones copied from its competitors such as Dianping and Ctrip. Comments are the website's core assests," the article said.
China Economic Daily commented on the issue on Sunday, saying if the allegation is verified, it (Mafengwo) breached the law.
Mafengwo, which means hornet's nest in Chinese, is an online community for Chinese tourists to share travel tips and shop for bespoken travel products.
In the company's statement, it said that fake comments only account for 2.91 percent of the total, and its platform barely has any fake zombie accounts.
Mafengwo, whose market value is about 17.5 billion yuan ($2.5 billion), said that it will face up to the review loopholes in the operational process and take positive improvement measures.
Mafengwo announced last December that its investors include General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, Ocean Link, a private equity firm focused on the fast-growing travel and tourism sector in China, Temasek, an investment company headquartered in Singapore, Yuantai Investment, Hopu, Capital Today, Qiming Venture Partners, and Hillhouse Capital.
